We want to talk about your newsletter. Are you sending one out? If you are, what is its purpose? Of course a newsletter in its most basic sense, is just a letter sent out to keep your clients and networking contacts informed about your business. Your clients and colleagues want to know what you are doing new, so keeping them in the loop should continue to be one of the main objectives of your newsletter.
But that should not necessarily be the driving force behind your newsletter. A good newsletter is the kind that gives back to your clients. It doesn’t drone on about your achievements (which is not to say they should not be acknowledged) nor does it list all of the sales prices you are offering right now (which is also not to say you can’t mention a few), but what your newsletter should do first and foremost is provide valuable information to your clients.
For instance, because we work with ACT! software, we know from our support calls that people are often looking for DIY answers to challenges they run into while using the software. And when we get several people asking the same question, we like to respond by including that answer as a tip in our newsletter.
Additionally, we like to address questions that take a little longer to answer here in our blog. Then in our newsletter, we link to our most recent blogs, so clients can find our newest ACT! tips and tricks. What else can you include in a newsletter? Coupons, white papers, free offers, and anything else that clients in your industry will find useful.
Using your newsletter as a means to reach out and give value to your clients can also have added benefit for you. If your clients learn that your newsletter is helpful, they will open it more often and see some of the more profitable items you may also toss in there, like featured pricing or a paid seminar.
And if you are an ACT! user, one of the best ways to send out your newsletter is with ACT! E-marketing, also known as Swiftpage. ACT! E-marketing makes it super easy to narrow down which contacts you want to send your letter to in ACT!, and allows you to send out graphic rich email templates to a large number of contacts in one send without getting your email address blacklisted as Spam.
For more information regarding ACT! E-marketing, call us at 847-520-0860, or check out this page on our website.